During the first four races of the 2011 season - all of which were road and street courses - Will Power was the man to beat, and frequently no one could. After two months on ovals, where Power is markedly less dominant compared with his main title rival Dario Franchitti, the Penske driver will be relieved to be back 'home' on a road course once more.

Power set the fastest lap time of the Friday practice sessions with 1:00.5581s, a tenth of a second ahead of Scott Dixon and over four tenths faster than Dario Franchitti in third.

Not that Power was satisfied yet. "The Verizon car is good, but we are still not quick enough. "We are just a bit off the pace," he insisted. "We still have a few things in mind to improve the car."

As for that fastest time, set just before the end of the session, Power crdited that to a well-timed switch to fresh rubber. "We put tyres on there at the end of the second practice and no one else did," he explained. "It is great to be in Toronto, though, and really good to see all the fans."

"It's definitely cool to be back at a street course, especially Toronto," agreed Dixon. "It's a fun circuit. It's definitely different than the last four races with all left hand turns and now coming back to a bumpy circuit. The track seems to be a little bumpier, especially going into turn 1 and maybe down the backstraight as well. It's created a few new issues that we haven't had here before."

He was surprised by the pace of everyone in the field. "The times actually seem surprisingly quick. Even on the primary tyres, we only seems to be five-tenths off the quick times of the options."

For James Hinchcliffe it's a special occasion, marking his homecoming for the first time since he stepped up form Indy Lights to the senior series. He admitted that the leap was proving to be bigger than he'd expected, especially here on a circuit he assumed he knew well.

"I could definitely tell the difference between the Lights car and the Indy car on this track," he agreed. "This track gets tougher and tougher every year and in every [series] you move up in. We took the first session to just get used to everything."

Also doing well and bouncing back to strong form after a subdued foray on the ovals in recent weeks is Britain's Justin Wilson.

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